Greve, Denmark—When the Greve Frikirke Church of the Nazarene, located in Greve, Denmark, sought to restart their youth group, they also ex­amined their overall mindset of youth ministry. They saw great potential for a community home in a building that is lovingly referred to as, ‘The White House’, because, well, the house is painted white.

Greve Frikirke owns The White House and is in the process of finish­ing renovations, the bulk of which took about three months to complete and included installing a new kitchen, floors, insulation, windows, and doors, as well as painting nearly every surface. Now, there are five residents in this home who are not only sharing life together but are opening up their home to the young people in the area.

On 15 August, Anders Holm Peder­sen, Catrine Hansen, Jesper Ørsøe, Lars Ørsøe, and Signe Bollerup moved into The White House. All five members of the home are between the ages of 20-22 and are currently studying or training for their future vocations. Signe Bollerup and Lars Ørsøe both recently finished a semester of classes at European Naza­rene College in Büsingen, Germany and returned to their home church to utilize their theological training in this new ap­proach to youth ministry.

The White House began their min­istry with a housewarming party on 16 August, and since then, they’ve hosted youth in their home every Monday night. All of the youth work of Greve Frikirke is now located at The White House where “a strong fellowship” is being established, said Bollerup, by having “a place where young people can meet together that is always open to them.”

Although the residents of The White House all have different responsibilities between work and studies, they try to eat dinner together as well as dream up goals for what their home could of­fer in the future. “We hope that more people will use the house beyond our Monday night gatherings,” said Bol­lerup. “We’d also like to partner with other churches in the area to start a monthly youth service.” Future plans also include utilizing their home for of­fering homework help, group cooking classes as well as music lessons.

“We’re just beginning, but we’ve had some good events where we’ve been able to meet some really cool young people who we hope to see more of in the future,” said Bollerup. “The most important thing, to us, is that there’s a place that is always open to show that church is more than just one or two days a week.”